Who wrote this?

Hi, I'm Moss.

 

I started writing this in 2026, as an attempt to synthesise my experiences and knowledge into something tangible, meaningful, and most importantly, actionable.

​Along these branching paths, I expanded my knowledge, developed new interests, found connection and common ground with many people. Through environmentalism, art, architecture, public realm, health, landscaping, branding, horticulture; my journey has culminated here:

 

• I view all land, all space, as deeply valuable and full of potential. My years in residential landscape design taught me how to reimagine small spaces into functional, exciting, biodiverse gardens; how to shape them to meet people’s needs, enrich their daily lives, and bring them outside more often. So, whenever I walk through public ‘green’ spaces, I’m usually very disappointed in how little thought and care was put into our urban land.

 

• I’m keenly aware of the work involved in creating and maintaining green spaces. Many of my clients don’t have the time to care for their gardens themselves, which is why they hired me. But the vast majority of people can’t afford a private landscape designer/horticulturalist, and don’t have the time to do it themselves. If their public parks are neglected and uninviting, their shoebox balconies face the back of another building, and their national reserves are a long drive away. So they just go without.

 

• I know what it feels like to lack connection to place. I’ve moved over 13 times throughout my life; first across the globe, then across various cities and suburbs in Australia. Being constantly uprooted, I’ve always craved a regular place, to hang out, to establish community, to feel grounded and connected to the people around me. The closest I’ve gotten are local farmers markets, but these are marred by their transactional nature, transient crowds, and prerequisite of driving through multiple arterial roads and spending 20 minutes to find parking before you can pay to partake in the quasi-community.

 

• I have witnessed firsthand how slow and difficult it is to get anything done at a city council level. Council officers are too busy dealing with bureaucracy, paperwork, meetings and emails, to actually make a significant change. Years to identify an issue, convince board members that it matters, secure funding, begin an investigation, and produce an issue report. Then another few years to develop a proposal for how to fix it, review and amend the proposal, run it by the board for approval. Then maybe we can start looking at funding, project management, and logistics. By the time the project starts being implemented, the original issue has evolved into something else entirely, and the proposed solution may not be relevant after all. 

 

As has been well researched and established, people need frequent and meaningful connection to nature for our health and wellbeing. We also need social connection, mutual support, and a sense of community to feel safe and happy in our neighbourhoods. 

 

We’re increasingly isolated and reliant on the goodwill of corporations who, shockingly, may not have our best interests at heart. The power structures we exist within have a vested interest in separating people, stripping nature apart, repackaging it, and selling it back to us. It’s not surprising that most of us feel helpless, held at gunpoint by the constant horror deluge - destruction and injustice, wars and genocide, greed and environmental obliteration - that fills our news cycle. What can we do, when the whole system is so broken? Lay down in defeat, accept that that’s just how the world works? 

 

In my paralysis, my tendency became to daydream. At first, simply as a way to mentally escape the grief, pain, and rage of knowing our world is being destroyed so recklessly. Then I read ‘The Green Ages’ by Annette Kehnel, and marveled how people have come up with such a variety of sustainable living projects throughout our history. It inspired me to focus my daydreams into something tangible, actionable. I can’t fix everything that’s wrong with the world at once, but I can do something. 

 

So that’s where BACKYARDS came from. I decided to make some use of what I’ve learned in my wiggly life, and spend my own time and energy researching and writing this proposal. I'm not getting paid for this, I'm not interested in monetising it. Maybe a few BACKYARDS will get built, maybe not. At the end of the day I just want this proposal to spark conversations, inspire others to write their own projects, to come up with alternatives, so we can create a future grounded in love for each other and for the earth.

 

BACKYARDS is my small, but hopefully impactful, proposal. An interjection into our densely populated, isolated, capitalistic city life. An aspirational social and spatial model that remains in touch with our modern urban realities. A mutual endeavour that gives everyone an opportunity to participate in a kinder, supportive, better future. 

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This line by Oliver (2024) captures it well: ‘Where governments are trying to balance competing interests, communities are not constrained, and can find local and grassroots ways to look after their own needs more autonomously’. So here it is, from a community member, for a community that needs change. The only way we can make a change is to work together.

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So I invite you to join this movement to reimagine our future world, starting with our backyards.

Thank you, deeply, for your time.

- Moss